[Kstars-devel] Re: About packaging kstars data files

[Noel David Torres Taño]

On Miércoles 03 Noviembre 2010 00:24:14 Akarsh Simha escribió:
> Hi Noel,
> 
> > Thanks for the work. It is enough for me, and I hope it will be for
> > Debian, since data are named as "public domain". Anyway I will
> > personally check the ReadMe file. I will send this to them and I will
> > keep you in touch.
> > 
> > Do this work as well to the USNO NOMAD catalog?
> > 
> > Thanks again
> 
> Thanks for bringing this up and ensuring it's solved.

Don't mention it :) It is better for everybody if we all are sure that only 
free data are included in free software.
> 
> USNO is "used with permission". Here's an excerpt from Jason's mail on
> June 30th 2008 to this mailing list:
> 
> "I heard back from Norbert Zacharias at USNO.  He's going to send me a
> subset of the NOMAD composite catalog using the criteria:
> 
> (is a 2MASS star) AND ( V <= 16.5 OR R <= 16.0 OR B <= 16.0)
> 
> which he thinks will yield ~100 million stars (FYI, 2MASS is an all-
> sky near-infrared survey).
> 
> The data will be shipped to me on a few DVDs.  I'll then process them
> (assigning HD numbers and star names), zip it up, and make it
> available to Akarsh."

Does "used with permission" include explicitly permission to redistribute? I 
would need the exact terms, since it may be that you are authorized to 
distribute it from download.kde.org but receivers (like me) are not authorized 
to redistribute it, which cuts the wings to packaging it after Tycho-2 package 
has been included in Debian.
> 
> HTH :)
> 
> Would you have any suggestions on how we should indicate these in the
> README? Since you're from Debian, you probably know about this best!

Well, I'm not "from Debian", I'm just a collaborative individual trying to do 
my best :)

I think (just my thought) that the best would be a sentence on this style:

 Data in this package is coming from the Tycho-2 Catalogue, which is in the
 public domain since it is a star catalogue in the NASA ADS. It was retrieved
 from [URL from where YOU downloaded it first time]. These manipulated data,
 adapted to the KStars data format, are under the [Choose License here] as
 stated in the COPYING file.

And an equivalent in the COPYING file:

 Data in this package origins in public domain data from the Tycho-2
 Catalogue. These data files are Copyright [YEAR] [Subscriber(s)] and are
 provided under the [Choose License here]:

 [COMPLETE LICENSE TEXT or alternatively canonical URL]

My suggestion for a work based under Public Domain data is to be Public Domain 
too, but that is up to you, or the original creators of the file, to decide if 
use GPL, LGPL, ODbL (Open Database Licence 
http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/) or any other.
> 
> :D
> 
> Regards
> Akarsh

Thanks to you for being so comprensive and helpful

Noel
er Envite
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